Monday October 7 Pentecost 20
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Psalm 106 Part 2
In the wilderness the people repeatedly betrayed God, and then joined horrific religions (as they understood them) when they entered the promised land, and there were terrible consequences. Even so, God took mercy on them when they were captured and caused their captors to let them return.
Their release from captivity in Babylon enabled the writers to understand that they had caused that captivity by abandoning God’s justice and how God had always forgiven and provided safety.
Psalm 127
It is useless to trust your own hard work—it is God who makes your household succeed.
Hosea 14.1-9 What’s Hosea about?
God invites the nation to return to God’s ways of justice, and then God will give them fullness of life again like fruitful plants. The same can be true in the world of our time.
This completes the book of Hosea. Tomorrow we begin reading Micah, which has a similar theme.
Luke 6.39-49 What’s Luke about?
Jesus says that to live fully we must have a solid foundation for our lives, just as a house needs a solid foundation. That foundation rests on two things. First, we must see clearly, and seeing clearly means seeing that a life of love, open to doing costly things for others is the way to full living. If we don’t see that, we won’t see how to live or to lead others to life. Second, our heart must be in it, we must long for that kind of love to be a priority in our lives —that’s to become the “treasure of our heart.”
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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